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A U.N. human rights expert urged the next U.N. secretary-general on Friday to make the elimination of tax havens a priority to ensure that corporations, billionaires and “kleptocrats” pay their fair share of taxes. Alfred de Zayas, an American law professor, also urged Antonio Guterres, who will succeed Ban Ki-moon as U.N. chief on Jan. 1, to call a world conference on phasing out the offshore havens. […] De Zayas told a news conference after presenting his new report to the U.N. General Assembly that it’s estimated that as much as $32 trillion are held offshore in secrecy jurisdictions escaping...

On Wednesday, Italian defense officials and industry representatives gathered at a military base on the outskirts of Rome to view a demonstration of Rome’s newest tank, the Centauro II. The exhibition took place on October 19 at the Cecchignola Army range. Parliament is still deliberating on whether to approve the $520 million for the combat vehicle, as Mauro Moretti, CEO of aerospace technology company Leonardo, and Deputy Defence Staff Chief Lt. Gen. Danilo Errico watched the prototype traverse ditches and steep hills. The Centauro II is more powerful than the original, with a 720-horsepower engine, a digital-communication display and a...

Asia's most powerful warship has been shrouded in mystery since construction began last year at the Jiangnan Changxing shipyards. Known as a Type 005 destroyer, the vessel is said to be armed with electromagnetic railguns that can shoot down missiles and attack land targets. Now, leaked images give a glimpse of the battle ship's progress - there appears to be four portals on the stern for sensors and weapons - along with up to 128 vertical launch system cells for missiles. Construction of this 175 meter long ship began in 2015, but officials have been very careful not to reveal...

An Iraqi refugee who raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool has had his conviction overturned because a court didn't prove he realised the boy was saying no. The rapist, identified as Amir A, 20, violently sexually assaulted the boy in the changing room of Theresienbad pool in Austria claiming it was a 'sexual emergency' because he had not had sex for four months. But an appeal court in the country accepted the defence lawyer's claim that the lower court had not done enough to prove he knew the schoolboy was saying no and overturned the conviction.

Syrian army says it will 'bring down' any Turkish war planes in its airspace The Syrian military said on Oct. 20 that it would bring down any Turkish war planes entering Syrian air space, a response to air strikes carried out by Turkey overnight in northern Syria. "Any attempt to once again breach Syrian airspace by Turkish war planes will be dealt with and they will be brought down by all means available," the Syrian army general command said in a statement. Turkish air strikes hit a group of Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG), the military wing of the...

French police staged protests in Paris and other cities for a third night, with political opponents seizing on the unease to accuse Francois Hollande's government of failing on security just months before a presidential election. Police say they are no longer sufficiently equipped even to defend themselves and have staged three nights of unauthorised demonstrations.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2016/10/21/stunning-donald-trump-speech-the-crossroads-in-our-history-video-and-transcript/

The hijab has often split opinion in the sporting world, but the Russian women’s mini-football (futsal) team have fully embraced the traditional Muslim garment – by wearing it during a friendly tour of Iran, where it is compulsory for women. “Our girls say that they are already used to [wearing the hijab],” says Aleksandr Kochetkov, executive director of the futsal club Dina. “Russia’s women’s mini-football team played two friendly matches in Iran, and both teams had to play in hijabs.”

Hillary Clinton solicited a $12 million donation from a government that her State Department considered corrupt, then realized the “mess” it would cause in her presidential run, a newly leaked ­email reveals. King Mohammed VI of Morocco agreed to give the money to the Clinton Foundation, provided that it held a convention in his country in May 2015 with Clinton as the keynote speaker. But Clinton realized that the conference, slated for a month after she announced her run for president, would hurt her candidacy.

So you think Donald Trump is the biggest threat to world peace? And Barack Obama engineered America’s “pivot to Asia”? It was actually Hillary Clinton, emphasising the necessity of a “strategic turn” for the United States, who launched the pivot to Asia in an October 2011 article titled “America’s Pacific Century”. The tone was martial: “Our military is by far the strongest and our economy is by far the largest.” The South China Sea duly featured: “Half the world’s merchant tonnage flows through this water”. Informed observers didn’t need a manual to spot Clinton’s subtle cue alerting them to the...

The United Nations celebrated Wonder Woman's 75th birthday by naming the comic book character as its new Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Woman and Girls, despite frustration from both inside and outside the world organization that the spot should go to a real — and less sexualized — woman.

Hillary Clinton has swept her debate series with Donald Trump, and voters seem to like Trump less the harder they look at him. But as Clinton surely understands, even as she approaches the White House, the global scene is getting darker. This morning, we saw a glimpse of that world, as one of America’s longest-standing allies in Asia turned its back on the United States and embraced China:

The Green Party’s Jill Stein has spoken an inconvenient truth, that on the existential issue of a strategic war with nuclear-armed Russia, Donald Trump is less dangerous than Hillary Clinton. ___ According to Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, “On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.” Yet, a glance at...

As the U.S.-backed offensive in Mosul, Iraq, begins, the mainstream U.S. media readies the American people to blame the terrorists for civilian casualties but the opposite rules apply to Syria’s Aleppo ___ Note how differently The New York Times prepares the American public for civilian casualties from the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on the city of Mosul to free it from the Islamic State, compared to the unrelenting condemnation of the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on neighborhoods of east Aleppo held by Al Qaeda. In the case of Mosul, the million-plus residents are not portrayed as likely victims of...

Security Massive DDoS Attack Causes Internet Disruption for Several Popular Sites, Including Twitter By Shaikh Rafia Posted 2 hours ago 20Shares Early this morning, attackers launched a cyberattack on a major internet management company. Dyn, which hosts domain name systems, announced today that it faced a massive cyberattack that caused problems for several websites, including some big names.Several sites go offline after massive DDoS cyberattack Dyn DNS is used by many websites as their upstream DNS provider, including Wired, PayPal, Github, and others. The problem with several of these popular sites and services appeared after a DDoS attack against the DNS service...

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recalled his nation’s Ottoman past in a speech Wednesday that warned his foreign enemies that Turkey would take a more proactive role in the region, despite being left out of the ongoing U.S.-backed assault against the Islamic State group in Mosul, Iraq. At the presidential palace in Ankara, Erdogan accused his nation’s adversaries of trying to make the Turkish people forget their “Ottoman and Selcuk history” and restricting the country’s ability to participate in international affairs. "From now on we will not wait for problems to come knocking on our door, we will not wait...

China and the Philippines could begin exploiting long-untapped energy reserves in the South China Sea, according to reports coming out of this week's meeting between Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and high-ranking Chinese officials — including a Thursday sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping — in Beijing. How soon that may happen remains unclear, however, as Duterte cautioned reporters that he has not been empowered by his Congress to finalize any energy exploration deal with his Chinese counterparts.

Hillary Clinton’s scheme for a “no-fly zone” – if implemented withouth the Syrian government’s approval – would be an act of war and a risk of a nuclear showdown with Russia, says ex-Congressman Dennis Kucinich. ___ The most consequential statement by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Wednesday night’s debate was her pronouncement that a no-fly zone over Syria could “save lives and hasten the end of the conflict,” that a no-fly zone would provide “safe zones on the ground” was in “the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria” and would “help us with our...